Mrs. Flinger: A work in progress

Fixing Mrs. Flinger Feb 20, 2015

I'm currently working on this website. I want to add back the links to blogs I love, some ways to find content easier, and put in archive, at last, some of the ancient articles. Come back to see updates.

So I’m going to England in a few days… Aug 16, 2011

This is pretty much how I start every conversation to any person anywhere right now. If you’re my grocer, you know I’m going to England in a few days. If you’re my pharmacist, my hair dresser, the lady who answers the phone for my hair dresser, my doctor, my kids’ doctor, my neighbor, my other neighbor, my neighbor’s dog: They all know I’m going to England in a few days.
I’ve nearly run up and down the streets naked screaming it.
“Nearly” being “thought about it once.”
I’m wild like that.
As I’ve travelled more in recent years, I am much more relaxed about plane travel. Mostly. I still grab a random stranger’s arm if the plane hits turbulence and still pray to physics that we don’t come crashing...
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BlogHer 2011: a usual recap Aug 14, 2011

The Perfection of Imperfect.
It can be overwhelming here. BlogHer can cripple those with a great self esteem. There are so many women, so many pitches, so many places to feel left out and alone in a sea of thousands. There are women with the right outfit, the tight ass, the amazing cleavage. There are people who print the highest quality business cards, carry their elevator pitch ready at a moment, who say all the right things.
Then there’s us.
To me Lotus is my BlogHer 11. We wear comfortable clothing and flip flops. We walk around with armpit sweat and unwashed hair. We don’t wear a pedicure. We don’t have the fancy business cards or elevator pitches and it we don’t even possibly pretend. We come as we are: raw, creative, expressive.
I’m blessed in the...
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Shuffle: No longer with EllisLab, now freelancing again Aug 02, 2011

He shuffles in from the rain. He is going as quickly as he knows how, realizing there is no reason to go any faster. He carries a vase of fresh flowers. He is walking in to Starbucks.
I watch people while I work. I am working as quickly as I can knowing there is no reason to hurry. I’m as vibrant as a vase of fresh flowers.
The man joins a table of elderly people. He has a community and they welcome him. He places the vase in the middle of the small, round, wood table and leans back to smile.
I can’t help but compare my own table to theirs. To them I am sitting on a computer, alone, in the corner. But you and I both know I am among friends; my own community of peers and friends and well-wishers. While you do not hand me flowers in a vase, you provide me with the same joy...
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The Precipice Jul 11, 2011

Life is a mindset. Life can get in the way of living if you let it. Practicality. Reality. Analysis. Risk.
I do not sit idle well. Beyond what I assume would qualify me for major intervention in a public school system possibly including tranquilizers, I pursue ideals the way children pursue sugar highs. I crave them. At times it can be annoying, I’m sure. “Oh! LOOK! I have the opportunity to [go] [see] [do] this [thing] [place] [job]!” Sometimes I annoy my self with my own enthusiasm. The bubble, it rises quickly and pops easily.
There are risks in life beyond measure. Deciding to return to graduate school, to take that perfect seeming job, to raise children with your spouse; these are beyond resources the mind can grasp. Sleepiness, fear, failure. Real consequences to...
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Life Impractical Jul 07, 2011

I live with an Engineer. I work with software developers. My life is a sort of a living excel spreadsheet. If things are to be done, they are to be done in order, logically, after much research and testing.
Only thing is? I am an anomaly. I picture myself standing in front of The Man watching myself on TV screens of utter chaos being told I’m the One who has to introduce spontaneity.
Introducing The Life Impractical.
A year ago this month I made promises to myself. This came on the heals of my “HOLYSHIT I TURN THIRTY FIVE” moment. Since that time my life has turned an incredible corner. Doors don’t just open, they fly open.
I’ve achieved much of what I ached to do last year: Visit Germany, Outline The Book, Find someone interested enough to promote...
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The Red Stapler around the world Jul 06, 2011

There are some people who are genuinely the type of person who helps remind me humanity can be awesome. The first time I met Suebob in person, we were in an elevator at BlogHer Chicago 2009. She walked in with her PJs on, a huge grin, and a welcome hug. “Hi Flinger!” It’s a moment where you realize we’re not just bloggers, we’re people. We laughed about her PJs, we talked about our websites. We had the kind of friendship that you only get in that initial meeting with other bloggers: the kind where they KNOW you. Possibly even more than your family does.
She’s spent years lifting each of us up, being a voice of compassion and comfort. She doesn’t just wear her PJs in an elevator, she takes that comfortable loving spirit with her to every blog...
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A note to Sp@mmers Jun 29, 2011

Hey, thanks Colon Cleanse Spam, but my colon doesn’t get as many visitors as my house does. If you can send some small gnomes to clean my dishes, I might reply to this email.
Love, Leslie.
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Missing: French Maid Uniform Jun 18, 2011

I’m literally on my hands and knees scrubbing our kitchen tiles. It’s my husband’s birthday today: June 18th. I’m listening to him put an IKEA shelf together with the children in the other room. What a way to spend your birthday, I think. Hey honey! Let’s clean the house!
The thing is, this is how we roll. We don’t have a cleaning person so if the kitchen is going to get presentable, I’ll be the one to do it. We don’t have lawn boys to do our yard work for us so if the weeds are going to be pulled, it will be our family pulling them. We have a lot, and I’m not even being dramatic here, a lot of work to do on our old 1963 “well loved” velveteen-rabbit of a house. And if it’s going to be done, we’ll be the ones to...
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If I look 19, you’re a purple horse Jun 14, 2011

Saturday we had a small going away party for some friends of ours. They’re moving back to LA after two years of this shitty weather northwest experience. I thought I’d help out since it was a last minute party and offered to bring some beer. I mean, comon, you need beer at a party for bloggers. Or anyone, for that matter.
I stopped at the brewery to pick up a growler of local fare.
“Can I see your ID?”
Sure you can. Thank you for asking. Oh, hon, you’re just so lovely.
Let me find it here. Hang on.
One sec.
Ok, it’s in here somewhere.
No, I don’t know where else it would be. It would be HERE. HERE IN MY PURSE.
It’s gotta be here. One more check.
Ok, look, I’m thirty-five. Can I just have the beer?
“No,...
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When mommy bloggers and brands connect in Seattle Jun 08, 2011

Last night I drove in to town for the SMC Seattle event my friend Maya put together. I say “Drove In To Town” because home-girl lives outside the city and in the past year has transformed from a Houston-size-city-girl to someone who can’t navigate anything bigger than Wichita Falls.
I put the address in to my GPS and my iPhone puts up a message, “Go toward the fucking Space Needle. Then ARRIVE IN SE-ATTLE.” No, I swear it said that. I’m pretty sure my phone called me a moron.
Forty minutes of sitting on a floating bridge head-bobbing to people in cars next to me as we do a dance of this-or-that-lane later, I fight, literally, to arrive at a parking spot that costs more than 5 half gallons of ultra organic milk flown in over night from France....
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